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Magic Jar required a component to hold your soul as part of the spell. However, Wish allows you to forgo a spell's components when duplicating them. How can one possibly cast Magic Jar using Wish?

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It's just a contradiction, requiring the DM to make a ruling.

There is no explaining this one away. Wish ignores the material component of magic jar, and the spell description of magic jar utilizes that material component as part of the effect of magic jar. It's just a contradiction. The DM will have to make ruling. As it says in the introduction to Xanathar's Guide to Everything:

One rule overrides all others: the DM is the final authority on how the rules work in play.

[...]

The DM is key. Many unexpected events can occur in a D&D campaign, and no set of rules could reasonably account for every contingency. If the rules tried to do so, the game would become a slog.

Sometimes the rules don't make sense, but the rules have given the DM the power to make sense of them for us. As I explained in my answer here, wish should trigger some conversations between the player and the DM about its use. If you plan to try to use wish to cast magic jar, talk to your DM first, so that they have time to think about the decision rather than ruling on the fly in play with a ruling the table may regret later.

You will run into a similar contradiction with any spell whose description explicitly uses the material component such as:

  • booming blade
  • green-flame blade
  • instant summons
  • plane shift
  • conjure barrage
  • conjure volley
  • cordon of arrow
  • create magen
  • dream of the blue veil
  • Jim’s glowing coin
  • Leomund’s secret chest
  • shillelagh
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    \$\begingroup\$ Any suggestions on or or experience with rulings that make sense for spells with special components in general, or Jar in particular? Like Wish creates a valuable Jar from nothing? (free money source is a problem.) Or you need a jar, but Wish lets it work even with a cheap glass jam jar (instead of a gem), for example? \$\endgroup\$ Jul 16, 2021 at 6:30
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    \$\begingroup\$ @PeterCordes Wish can create 25,000gp items from nothing. It's already a free money source. Creating a 500gp jar and casting a Level 6 spell doesn't sound like a big deal. \$\endgroup\$
    – user56480
    Jul 16, 2021 at 7:51
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    \$\begingroup\$ @PeterCordes usual assumption is that if the spell takes form in a material item, Wish provides the item for you out of "nothing". As a GM, I'd make special rulings for when the players want to use wishes that are "too much" for the spell to handle \$\endgroup\$ Jul 16, 2021 at 8:06
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    \$\begingroup\$ @user56480: That use incurs Wish stress, unlike duplicating a spell. \$\endgroup\$ Jul 16, 2021 at 8:11
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    \$\begingroup\$ @PeterCordes My personal ruling is that whatever component is needed for those uses of Wish are created as part of the spell, and once the spell ends, is disrupted or dispelled in any manner, the created component vanishes back into nothing or otherwise becomes valueless. That way, there isn't a free money source, the spell can work as intended, and Wish is still allowed to shine. \$\endgroup\$
    – T. Sar
    Jul 16, 2021 at 14:29

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